The Official Venmo Blog

January 27, 2010 · by Venmo

Monday, we got a chance to present at Mobile Monday Demo Night, where we shared Venmo with a great crowd and helped the Relief Foundation raise some money for their project to build an orphanage in Haiti.

On January 25th, Venmo presented at Mobile Monday Mid Atlantic Demo Night, a gathering of the top mobile technology companies in the region.

Venmo won this annual competition by engaging the audience in the most interactive presentation of the evening. The founders, Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, spent only 2 of their 5 minute presentation explaining the company, which allows anyone to send or collect money by sending a text message. Citing the recent campaign by the Red Cross that engaged thousands of people and raised millions of dollars for relief efforts in Haiti in only a few days, they explained that now anyone can collect money in a similar way via Venmo’s text message payments service.

For the remaining 3 minutes of the presentation, Kortina and Magdon asked the audience to try the product by making live donations to the Relief Foundation, an organization sending a delegate of 120 people to Haiti to build an orphanage. Audience members texted “pay relief 20 to help haiti” to the Venmo number (646.863.9557) and were able to contribute hundreds of dollars in a matter of minutes. In less than a week, the Relief Foundation has raised over $15,000 through Venmo text message donations, $600 of which was raised in the 3 minute demo during the presentation.

In order to engage communities around organizations and businesses accepting Venmo mobile payments, the service also integrates tightly with social networking services like Twitter and Facebook, allowing people, businesses, and charities to share their favorite donations and payments to favorite local spots with their friends on these networks.

To learn more about accepting Venmo as a non-profit or a business, please send an e-mail to info@venmo.com.